


A Hand To Your Darkness

by Owenjones



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1960s, 1970s, Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:08:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owenjones/pseuds/Owenjones
Summary: It's the 60's, Crowley is feeling awful about life, and he gets talked into buying some heroin off Shadwell.“Is this one of those that slows things down or speeds them up?”Shadwell laughed, “You certainly don’t need anything to go fast, Mr. Crowley,” he winced at his phrasing, “No, this will slow everything down.”“I’ll take it.”
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 126





	1. I Really Don't Care Anymore

“Mr. Crowley?” The Scottish voice had startled him out of his thoughts. Right -- he was having a meeting with this bloke about his secret witch-finder army. A ‘secret’ that he seemed rather keen to talk about.

“Lance Corporal Shadwell?” Crowley responded.

“Oh good, thought I lost you there for a moment.”

“I was just…” he waved his hand around, “just thinking.”

“I’ve noticed you think too much.”

Crowley glared, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shadwell offered up a shrug, “You seem on edge, is all. I don’ mean offense by it. In fact, I’ve got something that could help.”

“I very much doubt you could help me,” Crowley drawled, getting ready for another one of his mad pitches. 

“That’s what I hear from everyone before they’ve tried it. I’ve seen the most nervous wrecks turn their whole lives around with just a hit.”

Crowley realized he was offering up drugs and not to join a cult. Maybe that could help… “What sort of thing are you offering?” Crowley leaned in, “I mean, what’s it do to you?” 

Shadwell knew he had him hooked then and there.

He drew closer and Crowley wrinkled his nose at the stale smoke and condensed milk on his breath, “Take the best orgasm you’ve had in your life, times that by a hundred, and that comes nowhere near what this will make you feel.”

“Right,” Crowley didn’t feel particularly inclined to explain that he was a celestial being that didn’t even have the bits for sex, not unless he wanted to. And he had never felt the need to do so as of yet, so he had no reference for the measurement Shadwell was trying to use, “Sounds… nice.”

“It’s more than nice, it’s fucking life-changing.”

Crowley had tried various mind-altering substances throughout the centuries. He generally found the experience to be underwhelming and dull; they did nothing more than give him a tickle unless he took extraordinary amounts of them, which tended to grab undue attention from humans. The only one he enjoyed enough to keep consuming year after year was alcohol. Still, he knew enough from his experiences to know what questions to ask Shadwell.

“Is this one of those that slows things down or speeds them up?”

Shadwell laughed, “You certainly don’t need anything to go fast, Mr. Crowley,” he winced at his phrasing, “No, this will slow everything down.”

“I’ll take it.”

Shadwell asked for an extortionate amount of money in exchange for the little bag of white powder. He assured Crowley that it was the finest quality (it wasn’t, but Crowley’s mere expectation that it would be sorted that out). Nevertheless, Shadwell was shocked when Crowley didn’t try to negotiate the price. It didn’t matter to him anyway, the money was miracled into existence the second he reached into his wallet.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Shadwell said when they parted. 

That little bag of powder burned a hole in his pocket. He kept his hand firmly around the bag, playing around with the fine dust. It felt smooth and welcoming to the touch. 

When he arrived home, he gathered all the necessary instruments that Shadwell had told him about. Staring at him was the little holy tartan thermos on his coffee table. 

“Yes,” he responded to its judgemental glare, “I _know_ it’s not a good idea. Shut the fuck up, okay?” The thermos didn’t dare say anything back. 

With a groan of frustration, he collected all of the supplies and moved them to his bedroom. 

“Shall we get started, then?” he said, reaching for the little bag. He followed Shadwell’s instructions more or less, pouring the recommended amount, and a bit extra for luck, into a spoon. Lit a lighter underneath in order to dissolve it. He felt a bit silly like he imagined would feel trying to cook a four-course meal in an easy-bake oven, like there had to be a better way to do this. More proper implements at the very least. 

The mixture began to bubble, so he threw the lighter down and sucked up the liquid in the syringe. When attaching the needle to the top of it, he shuddered a bit. This was a little scary. He didn’t particularly enjoy being poked with sharp things -- tried to avoid it when he could.

But, he reminded himself, this time he would be in control of the poking. Not some pitchfork-armed sadist from Downstairs.

He tossed the spoon aside, turning the prepared mixture around in his hand. There was something said about air bubbles, wasn’t there? He stared at the few of them bouncing around the little tube. A few movie scenes popped into his head of doctors and nurses tapping syringes and squeezing the plunger ever so slightly. He had always assumed it was to test if the thing worked properly before they go around poking people. But, air bubbles--that must have been what they were doing. He copied the movements, feeling incredibly slick and pleased with himself. 

Now… the actual thing. He took his jacket off, rolled up his sleeve. His skin suddenly looked so fragile. Paper-thin. All his veins visible underneath. He gulped and tightened a tourniquet around his upper arm. Jesus -- the veins really popped out. He stared at them, the way they trailed through his body, perhaps more human than was strictly necessary for his job. More snake than he would have liked, too; his blood ran colder than most. 

He took the needle in hand, stared at it. 

_You go too fast for me, Crowley_

Fuck, he jumped a little as it pierced his skin. A little drop of blood billowed out into the tube. Almost like a jellyfish. It quickly dissipated into the solution, his own corporeal life force intermingled with the stuff there. Still time to turn back, he supposed. 

He pushed the plunger fast. _Something_ was rushing through him. Nothing particularly good -- but not bad either. A pleasant tingle mixed with a bit of nausea. Luckily, he had the forethought to not eat anything for the past year, so he wouldn’t be throwing up anytime soon. More than anything, though, he just felt a bit knackered. Not quite the ecstasy he was promised.

He threw himself off the bed and quickly prepared another dose, this time twice as much as the first one. Tourniqueted the other arm. He didn’t hesitate in injecting it and -- 

Oh, his head felt all light. Humans had definitely been making improvements at this since the last time he had a go at opium. He was falling back onto the bed, eyes rolling up. All the muscles in his body let go of any tension that had lingered there for hundreds, if not thousands of years. He hadn’t felt like this in so long. 

In fact, the feeling was absolutely… _heavenly_. His brain just stopped -- which had never happened before. Well, not since before the Fall. Even in his deepest sleep or drunkest state, he still worried about something. Not now. He spread his arms out on the silk sheets, and they felt like the clouds he slept on in heaven. 

Nothing mattered, he realized. He had not a care in the world.

*  
*  
*


	2. You Say Coke, I Say 'Caine

Crowley woke from a drug-induced fugue sometime in the early seventies. He stirred into consciousness with the weight of the world crashing down on him and messages from Hell piling up. If he didn’t get his act together, he’d be recalled back downstairs. And while there were traces of heaven on earth, no such pleasure existed Down There.

Crowley yawned, feeling his last dose of smack lingering around his veins: a lovely little tingle that he had grown to hate over the past couple years. It meant that he was coming down soon and needed to find Shadwell, wherever he was. 

Shadwell made himself hard to find, on occasion. Crowley even had to bail him out of jail a couple times to get his next hit. And during those times where he was waiting on the slow justice system to do its work, he had waited long enough to feel the beginning of the fall from grace. 

The itchiness, the emptiness, the crushing anxiety. The pleasure gone without a trace, slipping through his fingers. All hopes of happiness rendered impalpable like the clouds when he had been cast out. 

But this time he was off the stuff. He had shit to get done. 

He ran off to go find Shadwell, driving over to the shady area of Soho where he often spent his time blathering about witches to anyone who would listen. If he had been jailed again, Crowley thought he might have just miracled him out, and dealt with the blessed consequences later.

As he sped around the neighborhood, searching, he felt the creeping craving start to interfere with his thoughts. The need alone was a force to be reckoned with, excluding the disgusting feelings of Sickness that came with it. Crowley had never puked in his thousands of years of life, not until the first time he experienced the rough crash into sobriety. By now he had gone through it many times. While it never got to be more bearable, he at least knew what to expect from it. With pure will, he shoved the tide of cravings back in his mind. He wasn’t to be satisfied until he satisfied Hell. No more until then. 

Demons, being a species of pure id, normally lack any sort of impulse control or sense of delayed gratification. Crowley was one of the few with enough of an imagination to know exactly what it would feel like if he didn’t _get his shit done right now._ So he somehow resisted the temptation, ignored the waterfall of sweat pouring out of every pore, pretended he wasn’t aching all over and didn’t scratch his skin off no matter how much he felt the ants crawling all over his body. 

No, he was feeling perfectly fine, thank you very much. 

He screeched the car to a stop, not bothering to pull over. Shadwell turned at the sound, starting to smile and wave before he noticed the state Crowley was in. 

“I’ve got shit to sort out.” He grabbed Shadwell by the shirt and slammed him against a nearby building, “What will help me sort my life out?”

“I’ve got just the thing.” Shadwell smiled conspiratorially. 

And that was how Crowley began to plan his biggest scheme ever. Between snorting line after line of this _new_ powder, Crowley mumbled to himself about prayer wheels and computer hacking and how this whole thing would get him all the commendations Hell had to offer. More, even. In his frenzied state, Crowley ran around London, misplacing markers in the mud. 

While the plan was coming together, he only let himself have small doses of heroin (because going off the stuff completely was a hopeless endeavor, really). Just enough to keep the withdrawals at bay. It wasn’t enough, it was never enough. 

In order to distract himself from going back to the lovely, heavenly feeling, he took up horticulture, having read in a magazine somewhere that talking to plants helps them grow. The concept fascinated him so much that he walked into a gardening store and came out with a cartload of houseplants. 

Anytime he wasn’t working on his big project, he was talking to the plants to pretend that he wasn’t itching and aching all over. He talked, and talked, and talked, but the plants didn’t seem to respond as much as he expected. They didn’t really respond at all.

Talking slowly turned into scolding, which turned into full-on intimidation as he grew more frustrated. And then one of the plants _dared_ to grow a leaf spot, and Crowley lost it. Destroying the offending plant brought on a high all on its own. To his joy, the remaining ones began to tremble as he walked past.

Around that time, he began flipping through the radio as another way of distracting himself. He almost leaped out of his seat when a familiar name was shouted through the airwaves: _Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me--_

He turned the radio up, snorted another little bit to keep him going, and discovered from the BBC announcer that the up-and-coming band’s name was Queen. 

His mind ran quicker than ever before when he was on cocaine. Before he could stop himself, he had miracled all the cassettes in his car to be Queen music. This miracle was so powerful that later, he would be unable to change any of them back, nor even prevent cassettes (and later CDs) from transforming into Queen when they had been in the Bentley for too long. 

“I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike…” Crowley sang to himself while sauntering down The Escalator, “You say God, give me a choice. You say Lord, I say Christ,” he snapped his fingers to change his outfit, mumbling, “You say coke, I say caine--” 

“Crowley,” a curt voice interrupted him.

“Heya!” he spun around and waved, “I’m here!” 

“I can see that,” Beezlebub sneered at him as he shifted from foot to foot and sniffed heavily, “Your presentation was due to start ten minutes ago.”

“Yeah, yup, got it!” 

He took his prepared slides and gave all of Hell the pitch of a lifetime, ending with, “Can I hear a wahoo!” He was quickly commended and sent back up to earth.

The Powers That Be were finally satisfied with Crowley. 

He could finally undo the Fall again. Properly this time. 

He tore home, so distracted by the thought of heaven that he nearly forgot to miracle himself out of several car collisions. As soon as he was in the Mayfair flat, he opened his safe where he had kept his last stash of heroin. But, there was also that blasted thermos. He ignored how it smugly said, _back again?_ and grabbed the bag of perfect white powder. 

What business did that water have calling itself holy? The only holy thing in the world was _heroin_. That’s what he thought as he filled several syringes full of the stuff and shot them up one after another. As he fell back on the bed, he rose to greater heights than ever before.

*  
*  
*


	3. Closing In On Death

Aziraphale had gotten a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach one night that caused him to set down his tea. He held a hand over his abdomen, expecting the fluttering to go away after a bit. Instead, it grew exponentially with each moment that passed. 

It was nothing physical; angels didn’t suffer from physical ailments, after all. But, they tended to be sensitive to certain emotions like love. This didn’t feel like normal love though. Not like the love you would find between spouses, not like the love you would find between parent and child, or between best friends. It was a twisted sort of feeling, similar to the quite genuine, though terrifying, possessive love a stalker might feel for their victim. 

All in all, Aziraphale was unsettled. He decided he ought to check up with his Arrangement partner to see if perhaps he was experiencing the same thing. That could help narrow down whether the cause was generally supernatural or perhaps only ethereal. 

But Crowley didn’t answer the phone. Immediately, Aziraphale felt worse. 

“Right,” he confirmed to himself, “I should head over there.”

He took his time getting ready, making sure his nails were in order, putting on his finest coat, and grabbing a tin of biscuits to take with him. It wasn’t that he was worried about making a good impression; after nearly six thousand years it was fair to say their impressions of each other had been set into stone. No, the reason for all this fuss was, to put it quite simply: fear. He hadn’t seen Crowley since he handed him the container of a substance that could easily destroy him. 

As he miracled the bus to take the most direct route there, he certainly wasn’t imagining all the ways that Crowley could have been exposed to the holy water, whether accidentally or--

No, he wasn’t going to think about it. 

“Crowley?” he said to the front door, “Are you home, Crowley?” His knocks went completely unanswered. 

Normally he wouldn’t have dared to do this, considering breaking and entering was quite rude to do to a friend, but these were desperate times. Aziraphale miracled the door open and cautiously entered the eerie flat. 

“Crowley?” He called out, but got no reply, “I thought you might be… peckish. Are you here?” 

Thus, he ventured onward, checking all the rooms of the flat and finding each one empty. 

The bedroom door was shut; that was the last room to check. Aziraphale steeled himself to see a puddle of holy water in the center of the room along with whatever remains a demon left after being exterminated in such a way. Perhaps all that would be left of his dear friend would be the faint scent of sulfur. Perhaps only his sunglasses. Maybe nothing at all.

“Oh dear…” he breathed his relief upon walking into the bedroom. This feeling was quickly followed by sinking dread. Crowley was sprawled out on his sheets, teetering on the verge of discorporation. Alive, but only just, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” 

He dropped the tin and flew to the side of his bed, kneeling beside the limp, blue-tinged body. There was a horrible choking noise coming from his throat; barring that, one would have guessed that he was a corpse already. With a careful hand, he focused all his thoughts on ridding Crowley’s bloodstream of whatever poison had brought him to this state. 

His heart that had been barely puttering along suddenly leaped into action. Crowley’s eyes snapped open and he sucked in a wheezing gasp. He shot into a sitting position, clutching his chest as he tried and failed to slow his breathing. His pupils, shrunken to only a sliver, darted around the room before settling, in horror, on Aziraphale. 

Crowley croaked out, “Oh shit.”

Aziraphale for his part was too shocked to say anything at first. He finally noticed the assortment of drug paraphernalia scattered around Crowley’s bed and everything clicked into place. He was not ignorant in matters such as this -- after over one hundred years in Soho, he was quite an expert in many things considered illicit. And oh, he knew what those needles were used for.

“My dear boy… You nearly discorporated.”

“Yup.”

“If I hadn’t…” Aziraphale’s lip began to tremble, “You would have…”

“Yeah.”

He tried to meet with his gaze, hoping that Crowley would say something to make the whole situation better. But he didn’t. Aziraphale had discovered him with his soul only _barely_ clinging on to his body and he wouldn’t even explain himself. A bolt of anger suddenly shot through Aziraphale and he spat out, “Y-you blasted idiot! What were you thinking?”

Crowley pulled his knees towards himself, hiding his face even more, “I don’t know.”

“Why the hell would you risk that?” He continued shouting, “Are you daft? Or do you just have a death wish?”

He shrugged.

“If you got yourself discorporated, you might not be able to come back! They don’t just hand out bodies like they used to!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Crowley suddenly snapped. 

Aziraphale took a breath, “Then, _why?_ ”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“I'm not quite sure that anything would feel good enough to justify _that_.”

“Ngh,” he shut his eyes tight, “You don’t understand.” 

“No, I can’t say that I do!”

Aziraphale, feeling very close to tears, let his fist unclench and sat himself down on the bed next to Crowley. The demon had turned ashen, with dark circles beginning to appear around his eyes. He somehow looked even worse than before he had been revived. 

“How long has this been going on?” he asked, going for a measured tone but settling on an exhausted one instead. 

“Dunno. Since ‘67 or so.”

“Dear Lord.”

Crowley began rubbing his face, feeling as though he had just come out of the introductory tour of the nine circles of Hell. 

“You need…” Aziraphale hesitated before touching his shoulder gently, “You need to stop this.”

“It’s not as easy as that.”

“You know you can’t be doing this anymore.”

However much Crowley wanted to scream at Aziraphale to leave well enough alone, to stop lecturing him on matters he didn’t understand -- an equally strong part of him wanted to fall into his arms and be held until the second coming. Thank him with all his heart for rescuing his body, but curse him to the pits of hell for sobering him up. These competing drives led to him do nothing but sit completely still. 

And of course, somewhere deep down he knew Aziraphale was right. He had to stop all this nonsense. He couldn’t be completely dependent on the whims of one rather undependable Scottish man. 

A disturbing sense also began to sink in as he remembered the feeling of sliding out of his corporation, inching ever closer to earthly death. Despite being totally aware of what was happening to him in the moment, _he didn’t care._ He had lost the ability to care as soon as the last drop of smack left the needle. Another little while and the overdose would have sent him straight to Hell, never to see the Bentley or his flat or the bookshop or _Aziraphale_ ever again. And that disquieted him enough to make him want to try to get off it for good this time.

He was serious about stopping, but he also knew the Sickness would be starting up soon. However strong-willed you feel about giving it up, that all goes away when the Sickness knocks on your door and drags you back to heroin. Because isn’t it so much easier to just feel _good?_

Going through withdrawal in front of the angel would no doubt be the most humiliating thing he would ever go through, but the thought of experiencing it alone was enough to make him want to inject holy water straight into his veins. 

“Can you stay?” he continued to refuse to look at Aziraphale, wishing he had his sunglasses on, “Please. Just until I get over the hump.”

“I was already planning on it,” Aziraphale pulled Crowley’s sheets up to wrap around his trembling shoulders, “Someone needs to be here to make sure you won’t go discorporating yourself.”

He had no way of preparing Aziraphale for what he was about to see. 

*  
*  
*


	4. The Junkie Limbo

He wished he could sleep. He wished he had discorporated. Hell, he wished he were dead. Anything to stop this. 

Dear God-- Satan-- _Anyone_ , he wished he had heroin.

How he pleaded. And prayed. And begged Aziraphale to let him have just a bit -- just a little bit to ease him through the nightmare. Aziraphale simply shook his head each time, stroking his sweat-soaked hair out of his face. Crowley openly whined; he didn’t have any more shame. He’d lost it all around the end of the first day when the symptoms really hit. 

All the sweating, and the tremors, and the puking, and the fever. He writhed around the bed restlessly, the dope sickness hitting him harder as each hour passed. 

Aziraphale held his hand, allowing Crowley to crush it tightly with each wave of full-body cramps that came and went. There wasn’t much else he could do. Early on, Aziraphale had tried to lull him into a peaceful sleep, but even God Herself would have difficulty bestowing Crowley with more than a few seconds of shut-eye with the state he was in. 

Every time Aziraphale left the room, he would come back with tea, water, fizzy drink, or soup. Crowley’s appetite, meanwhile, was about as gone as it was possible to be. He’d lost count of how many times he’d lost the contents of his stomach. The fact that he was still puking was certainly the result of supernatural forces; he shouldn’t have had anything to throw up any longer. In fact, he couldn't even remember the last time he ate.

It was awful and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. He needed just a bit, only _one hit_ to get him by. After begging and begging and sobbing for as long as he could remember, he thought he finally appealed to Aziraphale’s compassionate nature. Aziraphale had stood and left the room. Finally, he had seen reason. He knew that Crowley couldn’t survive like this, that he needed something to cushion the crash. 

Only… when Aziraphale returned, he simply offered up a bite of plain toast. 

“Fuck you! You bastard!” he hissed before burying his face in his pillow, “Fuck you fuck you fuck you…” 

Aziraphale shook his head, “I know, dear. I wish I could ease your suffering, but you mustn’t have any more opium. It’s for the best.”

Under normal circumstances, he would have sneered that no one called it that anymore. _Please, for heaven's sake, we’re in the 20th century. I bet you still think opium dens are the scourge of London._ But at that moment, if the angel had brought him a tincture of laudanum, he would have gladly drunk it. 

“Fuck off,” he knocked the toast off the plate in frustration, then guilt punched him in the gut, “I’m sorry angel, I’m so sorry.”

Aziraphale lay down on the bed beside him, ignoring how disgusting Crowley felt himself to be, and pulled his shivering body close, “I forgive you.”

Crowley was falling to pieces in every way it was possible to do, only held together by those soft angel’s hands running down his back. His fitful state began to calm down then. Not nearly enough to sleep, but enough to avoid discorporating from sheer stress. Each time he tensed up as he was hit with more pain, Aziraphale held him tighter. 

Aziraphale had finally located the source of his own illness. It flared up anytime Crowley began his ritual of asking for the drug. It wasn’t a possessive love, he realized -- it was the love of being possessed. The love of the comfort that the drug brought. The thought rattled him: the moment he sensed the love at its strongest was when Crowley was in the process of being killed by the substance he loved so much. 

He had come so close to losing him, for if he had been sent to Hell, they likely would have never seen each other again. Aziraphale held onto him tighter at the thought of it. 

Crowley thought that the first day had reached the peak of agony that a corporeal body could experience, but by the end of the second day, things took a turn for the worse. Crowley began to see visions of Falling. Hallucinating that he was cast out again and again and again. No amount of coaxing could convince him that it wasn’t happening.

Slowly, the images morphed into everything about the Spanish Inquisition that he had tried to make himself forget about. It was as if every single method of torture was being done to him, first individually, then all at once. Freddie Mercury and Lou Reed were singing his requiem the whole time. 

Crowley became totally convinced that he had caught the bubonic plague. At another point, he thought he was Hamlet bleeding all over his sheets from a poisoned wound, and Aziraphale was Horatio sending him off with a “Goodnight sweet prince.” Soon enough, his bedroom descended into Judgement Day; the world he loved so much all burning to a big pile of ash like the Blitz all over again. The fires were put out by his own tears before they flooded the place, and his bed became the ark. 

Then he saw Aziraphale Falling instead of him.

By the third day, his visions began to subside. Even better, Aziraphale had managed to convince him to drink exactly two sips of water. While nothing else about his situation had improved, he was slightly more able to get a grip on himself. He was even lucid enough to have a conversation that wasn’t just the same cycle of pleading, swearing, then apologizing. 

After a long silence, he squeezed Aziraphale's hand and mumbled, “Angel, I feel like shit.” 

Aziraphale looked up sharply from the book that he had been reading. He let out a breath in a way that was not-quite-a-laugh, “You do? I never would have guessed.”

“Cheek.”

The fourth day he didn’t move at all. Ultimately, he just couldn’t get up the will to move a single muscle. It was pointless -- no matter how he writhed or rolled around he was helpless to do anything to stop himself from feeling terrible. 

The worst part was that he couldn’t even feel glad that he was over the hump. It was undeniable that his symptoms were beginning to wind down. Fits of nausea, cramps, and shivering were fewer and farther between. 

The days continued to pass and while things didn’t entirely get better, they were certainly getting easier. Sharp pain transitioned into dull aches, anxiety into depression, actively throwing up into nausea. The only thing that didn’t seem to change was the cravings. 

And on the seventh day, he rested. The illness had gone away enough so that he was finally able to drift to sleep. 

Aziraphale’s heart sank every time Crowley groaned or twitched in his sleep, as he imagined the feverish nightmares he could be experiencing. But, he thought better than to miracle him into dreaming about whatever he liked best; any slight disturbance could wake him and God knows he needed this sleep. 

*  
*  
*


	5. Choose Life

Crowley was coming to the end of it: he wasn’t actively in pain, though he wasn’t actively _anything_ , really. When he was awake and talking, he seemed to have a hollowed-out kind of look to him. Responding to inquiries monosyllabically and monotonously. While they both had assumed that the worst of it would be over and done with when withdrawal ended, soon a much more insidious torture began within Crowley’s mind.

 _Aziraphale didn’t want to be around him anymore._ Of course, he didn’t _say_ that, but it was perfectly clear in the way he said that he was going to the shops. Crowley curled up in bed, deciding that yes, Aziraphale surely hated him and he was never going to come back. Crowley would have gone to fetch the holy water had he been able to drag himself out of bed.

_You’ve driven away your only real friend, you stupid, stupid twat. You pathetic junkie demon. He’s gone forever and it’s all your fault._

_You thought he liked you? He’s an angel for fuck’s sake, how could he like you? The proof is there: if he did really like you he would have fallen, wouldn’t he?_

_You don’t have any friends._

_Heroin is your only friend._

His body was rendered unable to feel pleasure of any kind, the heroin had drained that away. All thoughts rested on the things that would be the most devastating, were they true. And in that state of mind, he was absolutely convinced that they were true. 

The front door opened and a familiar voice chimed, “Hello, dear.”

Aziraphale wandered into the bedroom rambling about what a lovely day it was and how the two of them ought to go on a picnic. How a picnic would surely do Crowley some good. It was no good sitting in the dark all day, especially since he seemed to be doing so much better. Crowley didn’t have the strength to go out for a picnic, but he didn’t have the strength to say no either. 

Whether the day actually was as pleasant as Aziraphale said, Crowley didn’t notice. He just sat, tracing his finger over the tartan pattern of the picnic blanket while Aziraphale chattered on about something. Crowley couldn’t hear him though, as his voice from a decade before rang out in his head: _“You go too fast for me, Crowley. Oh, don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps someday we could go for a picnic… dine at the Ritz.”_

After all these years, he was right back in the same place he had been when he had bought his first dose. So depressed and bored he didn’t know what to do with himself. He thought he might as well just sleep away the next century, tell Aziraphale to wake him up when they invented flying cars. If only he had actually been able to sleep for more than a couple hours at a time. 

“What’s on your mind?” Aziraphale asked after he realized that Crowley hadn’t been listening to a word he was saying.

“Sleep.”

“Yes, you do like a good nap, don’t you?” he hummed, “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you returning back to normal.”

“Ngh,” normal was shit. 

“Maybe if you’re feeling up to it, we could spend the rest of the day in my bookshop. I think you need a change of pace, don’t you?”

Crowley didn’t respond. Aziraphale poured him a cup of tea from the flask he brought along. When Crowley took it, he did not bring it up to his lips, but just gripped it tightly with both hands. 

Aziraphale had thought a lot about the ordeal they had just experienced. While he was unsure as to what was going through his dear friend’s mind, he knew that people never stumbled into addiction for no reason, and had thoroughly begun to feel ashamed with himself for the way he had reacted upon entering Crowley’s bedroom.

“My dear,” Aziraphale began, and the demon finally looked over at him, expecting the worst. “I want to apologize. I’m very sorry for raising my voice at you the other day.”

He shrugged it off, “S’fine.” 

“It is not fine, Crowley. You were in a vulnerable state. The last thing you needed was someone shouting at you. I was absolutely terrified, but that’s no excuse for me to have lost my temper like that.”

“Like I said. S’fine,” he stared down into the tea that he wasn’t drinking, “It’s what I deserved, really.”

It was a good thing, Aziraphale reflected, that Crowley had looked away at that moment. He was spared seeing the angel’s face wilting from heartbreak. By the time Crowley made eye contact again, Aziraphale had managed to paint a gentle, unwavering smile over the top.

Just then, a thought struck Crowley.

“Aziraphale…” and the angel blinked at him, entirely shocked that he was initiating a conversation, “What were you doing in my flat? You know, when you…”

“What was I doing?” What exactly _was_ he doing? Stumbling upon Crowley in that state somehow seemed to be longer ago than his gavotting days, “I simply decided to pay you a visit, dear boy.”

“You don’t call anymore?”

“As I recall, I _tried_ to telephone you, but no one picked up.”

“Oh,” Crowley’s eyes turned downcast, following the orderly lines of the blanket below him. His thoughts were perfectly concealed behind a blank face and sunglasses. 

“Is something bothering you?”

“Nuh.”

“Please talk to me,” Aziraphale took the tea out of his hands and set it down, “Please. I can’t promise to understand, but I will try my very best. If you’re feeling upset about something, perhaps I can help.”

Crowley’s chest rose and fell a bit quicker as he prepared himself to say what was on his mind. “I was going to discorporate,” he eventually murmured, “And I didn’t care one bit. I can’t believe that I didn’t care.”

The words hung in the air for a moment. Aziraphale took a deep breath, “That’s not true, my dear. You called out to me.”

“What?”

He nodded, “That day I felt very peculiar and I believe that the feeling was… a distress signal, of sorts. In fact, I’m certain of it.”

Crowley was brought back to the 18th century when a gut instinct drove him to revolutionary France to save the angel’s neck. To think that Aziraphale had gone through the same experience… 

And then his heart fluttered nearly out of his chest when Aziraphale cupped his cheek to meet his gaze. It was the first thing he had genuinely felt for a long time.

“So, you see, even when you were that _taken_ by the addiction to the point where you would have given yourself over to it, something deep down in you wanted to live. And that little spark reached out to me all the way across this city,” Aziraphale whispered, “I know this past week has been more than trying, but you have survived. I cannot tell you how proud I am.”

Crowley leaned into his hand, just beginning to notice the birds chirping away in a nearby tree and the way the sunlight filtered through Aziraphale’s angelic hair. It was a pretty nice day, wasn’t it?

Over the next few months, he rebuilt his ability to feel happy from the ground up. Luckily, Aziraphale was an expert at lasting pleasures -- savouring each bite of a meal or reading a slow, satisfying story. He was very willing to experience these alongside Crowley to help him get through those low moments. Crowley also threw himself wholeheartedly into his previous distractions, finding that a good session of plant intimidation did wonders for his mood. And slowly, ever so slowly, the cravings began to fade. 

Aziraphale and he slipped back into their old ways of interacting; no more cuddles in bed or hand-holding now that Crowley wasn’t feeling ill. But, from the little moments of intimacy that he had experienced during the withdrawal, he knew that those touches were better than anything else.

While he deeply craved for those soft hands to weave their way through his hair once again, it was a feeling he was willing to wait for. More than that, he was happy to wait for its return -- for whenever Aziraphale was ready. 

Because now, Crowley knew that the angel cared for him, loved him in the same way he loved the angel. And that was worth sticking around for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
